Francois I (1515-1547). Gold Ecu d'or, undated. Crowned arms, small radiate sun above. Rev. Two F's and two lis in angles of cross (Fr-345; Ciani 1073 var). In NGC holder graded MS 62, struck on full flan with luster. Value $1,000 - UP
The French king François I earned his popular nickname le Roi-Chevalier ("the Knight-King") through his tendency to charge impetuously into battle at the head of his knights, particularly when fighting against the forces of his arch-nemesis, the Habsburg Charles V. The knightly leadership of the French king was especially visible during several outbreaks of the continuing Italian Wars (1494-1559), such as the War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516), the Four Years' War (1521-1526), and the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530), but it sometimes got him into trouble. Following an ill-timed charge at the Battle of Pavia (1525), late in the Four Years' War, François I found himself captured and held hostage in Madrid until he was ransomed. Nevertheless, at the same time that François I continued to embrace the medieval ideal of the warrior king, his policies in France looked to the future and began the process of centralization that would ultimately result in royal absolutism. In 1593, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêt replaced Latin with French as the administrative language of the kingdom in favor of French, ordered the registration and authentication of births and deaths by ecclesiastical and public notaries, and prohibited guilds. The king also became a great patron of the arts, luring Italian masters like Leonardo da Vinci to France and creating the conditions for a French Renaissance.